Regular boardroom meetings that Jubilee Party aspirants have been holding across the country are meant to build camaraderie among them.
Nyeri Town MP Ngunjiri Wambugu said this will ensure they foster a good working relationship and walk along with President Uhuru Kenyatta.
The meetings are meant to avert fallouts among aspirants during party primaries.
Aspirants will have a chance to know each other so that when time for vetting comes, the party will be able to know each person and their strength on the ground.
In some places, Jubilee will do party nominations while in others, it might use consensus to select the strongest candidates, Wambugu said.
They will also ensure candidates who lose during party primaries do not leave the party but support the winners.
Unlike in 2017 when the President was running for a second term and many people came out to mobilise voters for him, the Mt Kenya region has no strong presidential candidate this time around.
Wambugu, therefore, said it is important for the party to have the right candidates in all elective seats who will sell the Azimio agenda and its presidential candidate.
“Remember the presidential candidate is going to come from another party and this is one of the challenges that we are going to face," Wambugu said.
"For us we are putting in a lot of effort in ensuring we have the right person running in every particular position.” .
The legislator said though there has been a conversation about the small number of people registering as Jubilee aspirants in the region, he expressed hope it will increase as time goes on.
“Our target as a party is to ensure that we are the majority party in the next parliament, county assemblies, in the council of governors and in the senate,” he said.
He was upbeat that the party is doing well as it has been attracting and identifying quality aspirants.
The party has been doing research and internal polls, Wambugu said, adding it would rather have one or two candidates who will win than ten who will all lose.
Jubilee, still, has about a week to undertake registration of aspirants with Wambugu saying the party is still encouraging and mobilising people to come out and register.
He said the party has started a conversation so that when the process of registering aspirants comes to an end on March 22, more people will have chosen Jubilee as their vehicle.
“We need to understand that the party is coming from a point where it had been bombarded very seriously and there was a perception that it did not have supporters,” he said.
On Friday the secretary general of the Nyeri county Jubilee party aspirants caucus Sammy Njayakio, who is also an aspiring MP for Tetu, said aspirants have been holding regular meetings to discuss strategies to strengthen the party.
Over 70 aspirants attended the meeting at Le Prestine Hotel in Nyeri town.
Gachara Kamanga the chairman of the caucus and Peter Munyiri, both Nyeri governor seat aspirants, among many other aspirants were present.
Kamanga said the aspirants have a lot of energy and expressed optimism many will win in this year’s elections.
The journey, they said, has started and that their opponents should be prepared for the mother of all battles.
(Edited by Francis Wadegu)
